Are the impressive and diverse flyby sounds expected to make a comeback? First of all, are they gone?
TL;DRThe flyby sounds are not gone, only mixed differently, and the speaker thinks better mixing and ducking should allow both the old overhead experience and clearer distant-ship cues.
They're not gone. No, they're not gone. They're just mixed differently. They never went away. I've seen the video that people always show, they're like, when are these ones coming back? I've seen that video around, and those sounds are actually still in there. They're just mixed differently. But the difference is, back then, we didn't really play anything in the build-up to the pass-by sound. And it was just, the ship would go overhead, and then the pass-by one-shot we play in isolation. Now we play a lot more stuff on the approach for distant ships and atmosphere, all this kind of stuff. So I guess the problem is that I'm not saying we haven't lost something in this transition, but I think we just need to mix it better so that when there is a ship flying directly overhead, you do still get that same experience that you used to. But I think from a gameplay point of view, it's better at the moment because you can actually tell where a distant ship is and if it's coming towards you or not. Whereas before that was a lot harder.
Because it was overwhelming before. Yeah, there's a bit of a cinematic element that's maybe been lost slightly because we're trying to tell the player more about what's happening in the ships in the area. But yeah, it's always that balance between the two.
So would you say it's something worth looking into without committing to one action one way or the other? Because even just looking in the chat right now, there are some folks who like it, and it's an improvement, and there are some folks who are like, no, we want the old sounds back. So you're knowing there's no way to please all people all the time. Is this something worth at least taking a look at?
It should be possible to get both. It should be possible with the proper mix and the proper ducking of things and the context, we should be able to get it so that if it is one of those situations where it's directly overhead and really close, you do get the old experience, but in the situations that benefit from what we were talking about, where you can hear them more clearly at distance and that kind of thing, then we can have that. It should be possible.